


Sorry

by PAMDirac



Category: Zootopia (2016)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-13
Updated: 2018-01-13
Packaged: 2019-03-04 11:42:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13364031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PAMDirac/pseuds/PAMDirac
Summary: What did it take for Judy to go from her first press conference back to the happy-go-lucky rabbit we see at the end of the film? Here's one small part of that journey.Canon to my main work Hopes and Dreams.





	Sorry

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Jack_Kellar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jack_Kellar/gifts).



> So, you can all blame Jack_Kellar for this one. I wasn't planning on writing this scene but after he commented on the main story (Hopes and Dreams: works/10676277) the idea embedded itself into my head, largely thanks to his enthusiasm. Eventually I gave in and drafted this out. It was horrible and I threw it out. A week later I started again, deciding to try something different. I ended up repeatedly re-drafting this scene, mostly in my head as I walked to and from work.
> 
> If you enjoy this, thank Jack. If you don't, blame Jack.

Okay, no two ways about it, I'm nervous. So nervous that I'm feeling really sick. What the _hell_ was Bogo thinking? How can he possibly trust me to do this?

My eyes flick over to him, up at the podium, calm as ever, and I can't decide whether I should be cursing him for being able to keep his cool like that or thanking him for trying to take some of the heat for me.

What if I say something stupid again? What if I make things _worse_? My right foot _almost_ manages to start thumping but I catch it just in time. Best case scenario is I embarrass myself horribly up there anyway, no need to add laughs for a rogue foot - especially since I'm in uniform and should be maintaining a level of professional decorum. I lower my foot as slowly as I can. It only lifted a few centimetres but I'm incredibly self-concious as my toes creep downwards. What if someone looks at me right now? Is one of the headlines going to be a scathing article about fidgety, trouble-making bunnies?

"And so, as this conspiracy has shown more clearly than ever, we all need to take a long, hard look at ourselves," Bogo rumbled, his deep voice thrumming in the still air.

Beets. That means I'm about to be up. I can't be doing this! Well, I kind of have to, but I don't want- Well no, I do want to, but I don't want to screw up! Aaaahh! He's finishing; I'm about to be up! Help! This was supposed to take longer; I'm not ready!

"Now, before I move on to an important announcement, one of my officers would like to address you."

The world went silent, as if someone had pressed the mute button on the universe. Or maybe the mute button on me or my ears? Could my ears be unplugged? Aaaahh, soggy cabbage. Bogo's stepped back and is gesturing me forwards. I can't do this; I'm not ready. As I take a breath though - just an ordinary breath, nothing deep or special or meditation-y - my body takes over. Officer mode activated. March up to the podium, dress blues rustling - funny how that's all I can hear right now.

I'm at the podium. Pellets. This is being broadcast live, partly to prevent any less-than-favourable edits spreading faster than the real thing could be seen. I've got to hurry; I've likely only got _seconds_ before the main target audience turns off the TV. Officer mode is still active though and seems to push the first word out of my mouth.

"I-"

My voice sounds a little hoarse but echoes horribly in the otherwise silent universe. Officer mode clears my throat for me as I realise _this is it_. This is my chance to try to help. I have to do this and I _will_ get it right. I start speaking once more, my voice not as confident as the press office might have liked but it's clear and smooth, the roboticism of memorised lines thankfully absent.

"I know I'm the last mammal many of you will want to hear a word from but I'm here to apologise. I'm not asking for forgiveness; I haven't earned that and I don't deserve it either. All I want is a few minutes of your time so that I can give you the apology you are due."

I take a shaky breath, suddenly realising that I'm really doing this, that I'm really in front of a bunch of reporters again. There aren't any questions yet but I bet as soon as I finish there'll be a frenzy. Come on, you can do this.

"To everyone hurt by my first press conference: I'm sorry. I never meant to cause so much pain. I'm sorry for what I put everyone through and if I could take it back, if I could turn back time, please believe that I would. None of you deserved what happened - what I _inflicted_ on you."

I sniffle, fighting back tears.

"To any predators still listening: I'm sorry. To those of you that I'm lucky enough to somehow still be able to call 'friends', to those who've allowed me to continue living my dream of serving in the ZPD; to any of you who've shared a bus with me, or walked down the same street; to each and every one of you: I am sorry. I know nothing I can ever say will ever make up for what you've been through and I know nothing I can do will ever earn your forgiveness."

I look down for a moment, blinking rapidly.

"Despite that, I swear to you all that I will spend the rest of my life trying. My favourite song is Gazelle's 'Try Everything': I'm going to try this. It's impossible - I know that going in - but I promise I will do anything and everything I can to make up for any and every little bit of what I did."

I bite my lip and look down again, blinking even faster than before. Swallowing thickly, I look back up, knowing that I need to finish what I've started.

"I know that I didn't just affect predators though. To the prey out there, to all of you who know any predators, to those of you who work with them, to those of you that have predator friends: I'm sorry. I know many, _many_ of those relationships will have been damaged and I'm sorry for that. I'm sorry for raising doubts and suspicions, for making any of you question the mammals you've always known. I'm sorry for the fear and the uncertainty and all the rest of the damage I managed to cause."

My voice breaks a little and I can feel tears starting to creep out of the corners of my eyes. Despite the advice from the PR team, I have no choice but to sniff and drop my head once more, squeezing my eyes shut tightly to try to force the tears out while my head is down. I take a shaky breath and open my eyes, then look up to continue.

"To any mammal in Zootopia and beyond who has been in any way affected by the Nighthowler Conspiracy: I am _so_ sorry and I hope that you can all find a way to move past the hatred and anger and fear."

Well that does it: I'm full-on crying now, on camera too. I'm not sobbing, but anyone with decent eyes will be able to see how wet my eyes are and how the fur on my cheeks is going to start changing colour soon. I shake my head slightly, biting my lip as I look down again. This absolutely must _not_ come across as a sympathy grab. I take a few deep breaths and try to surreptitiously wipe at my eyes. When I'm eventually composed enough to face the cameras again, I notice a few of the reporters are looking uncomfortable - were they expecting something else from me? Am I doing something wrong? Or am I embarrassing myself so much they're uncomfortable on my behalf?

I do my best to ignore those insidious little thoughts and imagine the lot of them are just Nick. It's just me and Nick. Those warm green eyes of his and a soft, encouraging smile. Some teasing line about bunnies, just like under the bridge. I'm careful not to smile - that would never do - but to my relief, thinking of Nick has helped push those pointless questions into a dim, dark corner at the far edges of my mind. I still have some things to say and I'm not giving up until I do.

My shoulders pull back and I stand a little straighter, though my ears are still firmly down - now a reflection of my shame and regret more than nervousness and fear, betraying nothing of my new-found spark of confidence and determination.

"For those still listening: thank you. I have a little more to say though, so if you can spare a few more minutes, I'd like to explain how and why this happened. I don't want to explain to try to justify anything. All I want is to make sure that as many mammals as possible understand the how and the why so that as few as possible will be in danger of making it happen again.

"When I and the civilian working with me found the missing mammals in May, I'd had less than five hours sleep the night before and had been on the go since four in the morning with just another few hours of napping around lunchtime. As Chief Bogo stated, arrests were made and the missing mammals recovered at around ten PM. By the time the scene had been properly cleaned up and all the work that needed doing was finished and we got back to the precinct, it was midnight. After all that, I had to try to fall asleep in one of the bunks normally used by the twenty-four-seven emergency response teams.

"The next morning, having had no chance to catch up on lost sleep, I was pushed up onto the stage to answer questions about the case. I had never done _any_ public speaking before in my life and had _no idea_ what I was doing. I'd received no briefing, no instruction and had no idea that I might be asked leading or pointed questions. Despite that, I managed to answer the first three questions without making a complete fool of myself - though I probably should have thought more carefully about what I was saying even then."

I sniff, trying to ignore the moisture I can feel in the corners of my eyes. Nick's still in my head, still smiling. He gives a little nod of encouragement and waves for me to go on.

"Then I was asked 'why'. When I said that the ZPD didn't know, the crowd of reporters started getting agitated. I was worried that my answer might be causing panic. It's far-fetched, but I was nervous and out of my depth and I was worried I might end up triggering a panicked riot or stampede right in the lobby of Precinct One, right in front of Chief Bogo and the new Mayor."

I let out a small, though audible sigh.

"So I tried to calm things down. I was anxious and searching for anything that I might be able to say at that point. What could I say that might be useful and be believed? What do you do when you're trying to persuade someone? A lot of the time you quote an expert. That's what I found: I remembered the doctor that Lionheart had employed at Cliffside. I'd overheard them talking and she'd suggested a cause for the savagery."

I look down, the shame a near-physical weight on my shoulders. The room is quiet, quiet enough that I can just make out the faint patter of droplets falling onto wood.

"I should have thought about what I was going to say. I should have thought about what I'd heard, and how ridiculous it was. But I didn't. And we all know how that turned out."

Despite my efforts, my voice was getting quieter - the instinct to avoid embarrassing or shaming myself forcing it down. I shake my head once more, trying to throw those feelings off, and take a deep breath.

"I _should_ have thought about what I'd heard. I _could_ have thought about it that morning. If I had, I would have realised just how stupid, small-minded, and insulting it was. That what I'd heard was _exactly_ the same kind of ridiculous, bigoted nonsense that I'd been fighting against my whole life.

"From the moment I announced my dream of being a police officer, the most common sentence I ever heard became some variation of 'you can't do that because you're a bunny'. Ever since I was nine years old, I've been hearing - and ignoring - words about what can or can't be done, about what is or isn't possible, just because of what I am. I _should_ have recognised exactly that same rubbish as soon as that idiot of a doctor said it: as soon as she implied it was ' _because they're predators_ '."

Whoops. The PR team would go nuts about that. I wasn't supposed to call the doctor an idiot on camera. Oh well, it's done. And I think it's more genuine too. I feel disingenuous enough having had them sanitise my script. I understand why - they wanted to make sure that nothing was ambiguous and prevent anything from being misconstrued or simple editing from being able to build any _really_ bad sound bites - but it sounded less like me. That little flash of what I was really thinking, really feeling, might help prevent mammals from thinking that someone else had written my lines for me - which would be disastrous.

"So the _how_ boils down to that: I was tired, nervous, and in trying to prevent panic, I blindly repeated what I'd heard an expert - a _doctor_ who'd surely been working with these mammals for some time - say. The _why_ is a little more subtle and while I'm not at all proud of any of this, I'm going to share it in the hopes that others might learn from my mistakes."

Every single one of the reporters that Bogo and the PR department hand-picked was now looking at least a little uncomfortable. How many times had each of them just quoted some expert?

"Growing up, I was surrounded by rabbits. Hardly surprising, given the population of Bunnyburrow is around eighty-seven percent rabbits. Another ten percent are larger prey: mostly sheep and the like, with a few larger bovines too. Just _three percent_ of the population are predators, and they mostly kept to themselves. The town certainly wasn't actively segregated, but in hindsight it's clear that segregation happened, and I believe the way that way we prey behaved is largely to blame: why would the few predators around want to mix with us when we were so unwelcoming?

"I remember horror stories as a kit; running around the fields and playing with my siblings and friends; kithood bullies. In every case, predators were portrayed as the 'bad guys'. It might seem innocent enough - is a ten year old rabbit likely to come up with a story meant to scare his younger siblings where the villain is another bunny? And even if the story paints predators in a bad light, it's just a kit making things up, right? But the truth is, every part of that is learned from our parents and the rest of the community. Spending the first eighteen years of your life surrounded by older friends, family, and even the random guy delivering pizzas all saying one thing... It leaves an impression."

I look down once again, feeling terribly small for what I'm about to say, and have to fight to look back to the camera before continuing.

"As an adult, I became aware of the bias and prejudice being spouted by those around me and tried to fight it. Even at the end of April, just days before we found the missing mammals, when my parents were seeing me off as I was moving to Zootopia, I was trying to correct them and push back against what they were saying about the big bad city full of predators. I thought that because I knew about it, that because I was fighting it, that I was immune to it."

I have to pause, a lump in my throat making even breathing painful for a moment. My voice is so thick at this point that I'm amazed nobody's asked me to repeat anything.

"I was arrogant enough to think that just because I knew about the problem that I'd become immune to it. The truth was laid bare on my first day on the job but I didn't see it. I thought I was helping and giving a compliment; really I'd started to help all because I profiled someone and thought I needed to arrest them; the compliment was about as backhanded and patronising as any could be."

I take a deep, shuddering breath to steady myself, feeling my ears trying to press their way through my uniform shirt. I wonder if that's actually possible?

"So there's the why: I was brought up hearing a false narrative but it left its mark and I was arrogant enough to believe myself incapable of making a mistake that I knew about."

There's a long moment of silence then - not as total as earlier when I thought my ears had been unplugged but there's not even the rustle of a sleeve in the room right now.

"The take-away then, what I hope mammals can learn from this, is easy to say but hard to do properly. Firstly: question what you hear and say - don't blindly trust experts just because of who they are. Secondly: think carefully about how you act and how you became the mammal you are today - is there anything lurking inside you that you've ignored or overlooked? You shouldn't fall into the trap of thinking you're never going to do something wrong just because you know about it. Thirdly, and by far most importantly: I am sorry."

I say those words with a heavy voice, letting each linger in the air before I say the next. No matter what else anyone takes away from this, I hope those last three words are part of it.

"I hope that, as a society, we can start on the road to recovery together. Thank you."

I step down from the podium even though I'm supposed to stay up there for questions. I can't do it though. It's too dangerous. I could say or do something stupid again and start all of this over again. I'm never going to do that. Not. Ever. Half the fur on my face feels damp now and I struggle to hold my head high as I fight to walk, rather than scurry, off the stage.

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, nobody bite my head off!
> 
>   * This was an experiment and while I think I got it mostly right, I'm not a very empathetic person: working out what's going on in someone else's head is **really** difficult for me. Let me know how you found it!
>   * 'Hands': I quote Bellweather from the film: "...I'd say the case is in good hands." I know everyone uses 'paws' in this fandom but my headcanon is a little different. I think paws, hooves and other similarly specific words would be used in more narrow contexts but 'hands' is a more generic, catch-all kind of thing. For example, in her parents' warren, Judy wouldn't have reason to use any word other than 'paws' since every mammal around is a rabbit and they all have paws. In contrast, if a mechanic were working underneath a car and a customer came in, the mechanic might say 'can you _hand_ me that spanner' before they got out from under the car and saw who/what they were dealing with.
> 
> In this particular scene with Bellweather, you can therefore view the use of 'hands' as a bit of a slip: the case is in Judy's paws, but since Bellweather's hoof is nudging things along, the case is actually in both the officer's paws and the sheep's hooves. Thus, since Bellweather's talking about both paws and hooves at the same time, she uses 'hands'.
> 
>   * Finally, in C12 of Hopes and Dreams, there's mention of questions but Judy's just walked off before anyone can ask any. Not a plot hole! The pointed questions were directed at Bogo regarding the behaviour of his officer ;)
> 

> 
> Whether you enjoyed this or not, please let me know what you thought and make sure to check out my main story, Hopes and Dreams: http://archiveofourown.org/works/10676277


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